EMC has launched its latest assault into the mid-sized business space by unveiling the latest in its line of Clariion storage arrays.
The CX3-10 FC/iSCSI System is the entry level into the CX3 UltraScale family of products. It can scale up to 30 terabytes, and is both Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI compatible.
Nigel Ghent, marketing director for the UK and Ireland at EMC, said the previous model – the CX300 – would still be sold, but that it only offers an FC connection.
“With the CX3-10 we are offering resellers the opportunity to go to customers with both sets of connectivity options,” he said. “This is a real channel play for EMC and will widen the sales opportunity that resellers have.”
Troy Platts, director at EMC VAR Nexstor, agreed that having both FC and iSCSI would open up new doors.
“A lot of storage vendors seem to think that multi-protocol support is not required at the low-end,” he said. “But it is required more at the low-end because at the high-end companies have more money and can afford to buy all the different arrays, whereas SMEs can’t.
“This should help EMC compete with firms such as Network Appliance [NetApp] in the mid-tier space.”
However, despite pushing the channel elements of the product, Ghent said the CX3-10 will also be sold by Dell, along with its Velocity partners and, in certain deals, EMC directly. Although he added that Dell will not have an OEM deal for the latest array in the same way it does with the other Clariion arrays.
Platts said that the Dell agreement “does not do EMC any favours”.
“Dell is a bit of a thorn in our side because of the preferential treatment and pricing,” he said. “Dell is becoming a massive EMC reseller, which means we go head to head more with Dell now than we do with NetApp.”
Peter Dickinson, business development manager at Transam Microsystems, said the Clariion product was part of EMC’s campaign into the mid-market. However, he said: “Dell being an OEM can be a problem because of pricing; most resellers are priced out of the market. However, we do win deals based on the additional services and support that we can offer.”
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